I don't understand Yahoo!'s focus, except that they own a large assortment of web properties (e.g. flickr, Yahoo! search etc.). I don't understand the positioning of the elements on the page and their relative importance. I don't understand the choice of the colour purple (very edgy, certainly not a majority favourite - ever seen people dress in purple??).
People are smart enough these days to know, who's the market leader in certain categories. The walled garden approach will not deter them from seeking out the best product just because Yahoo!'s own product is featured on their portal. This is essentially an early version Internet strategy, or the AOL approach, which will work for novice computer users, but as the population becomes more tech-savvy, will show ever diminishing results.
One strategy that IMHO makes sense to me surviving as a portal (aside from their web properties), is that of a personal aggregator, like netvibes, so the front page becomes a customized dashboard reflecting users interests.
I interned at Yahoo for two summers, but I worked in Break/Fix for the search clusters. I was no where near marketing.
As far as I could tell, non-tech-savvy users are their target audience... and there are way more of these people than you might think. Plus, Yahoo's finance property is pretty good.
Funny that you mention netvibes - I use it, but I use it as a glorified post-it note rather than a portal.
People are smart enough these days to know, who's the market leader in certain categories. The walled garden approach will not deter them from seeking out the best product just because Yahoo!'s own product is featured on their portal. This is essentially an early version Internet strategy, or the AOL approach, which will work for novice computer users, but as the population becomes more tech-savvy, will show ever diminishing results.
One strategy that IMHO makes sense to me surviving as a portal (aside from their web properties), is that of a personal aggregator, like netvibes, so the front page becomes a customized dashboard reflecting users interests.